Delineating sustainable low-arsenic drinking water sources in South Asia

Abstract

© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London. Access to safe and sustainable drinking water is a basic human. In present times, when much of the world is reeling through severe groundwater availability stress, large parts of South Asia that hosts the aquifers of the three of the largest global river systems are bountiful with groundwater. However, much of this groundwater is enriched with carcinogenic arsenic. The present study aims to rapidly delineating sustainable safe drinking water sources in regionally arsenic-unsafe groundwater areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal. The study validates the correlation between aquifer sediment colours obtained from local drillers and quantified groundwater chemical composition, characterize aqueous and solid phase geochemistry and dynamics of As mobility and to assess the risk for cross-contamination of As between aquifers in study areas. The optimistic outcome of the study provides an unique opportunity for the local drillers in rural communities to target As-safe aquifers for well installations in Bengal basin.